In SEO, domain age matters

By Sean

How much weight does age have in SEO? They say that a site’s age matters in a website’s search engine rankings. How does this work? How long does your site have to be up in the web to be ranked higher by our beloved Google?

“Off the bat I am going to say yes as we had 2 x domain names which were both 7 and 3 years old respectively.
The 7 year domain name hadn’t actually been used for webhosting and the 3 year one had been running for the 3 years advertising our products. I fired up the 7 year domain name with exactly the same content as the 3 year. To my surprise the 7 year domain name hopped right over the 3 year in keyword rankings. Basically for every keyword the 7 year got to the 1,2 or 3 page. The 3 year was lagging in all categories.
I stipulate that the 7 year had no backlinks and the only thing done to the site was some SEO for keywords etc. The 3 year site got the same SEO upgdate treatment.
So I would have to say that age plays a big role in keyword ranking.”

Google looks at the domain age just because if you’re up there for a long time, that must probably mean you’re publishing quality content. It only means that your site is up because of a reason and you’re not just any spam sites that go up and then disappear from the radar.

Some claim domain age ain’t that big a factor but for me, I would think that it is. If I were Google, I’d say that time filters out the quality sites – coz if it ain’t quality, it probably won’t last long in the web right? It’s a good filter and I think Google’s using it even if it’s not a colossal factor, it still is – and in SEO, all factors are studied.

If you register your domain for 2-4 years, it would be better than just 1-2 years. Google knows. We can’t really say what works or how much effect something has on your page rank. But if you know it might have an effect, why not go the extra mile? After all, SEO is all about going the long road.

About Sean

Comments

I agree, filtering out quality sites by age is a smart thing to do. I have also noticed some of my sites that I brang online after them sitting for years (since 2003) have shot to 1st, 2nd pages of google for high competitive keywords.

Yep! And that's something you can't buy. Google looks at your domain age and based on that, they would wager you're probably a trust-worthy site coz you're up for so long. It's a great thing to have an old domain – really powerful when it comes to keyword rankings

Yes, I think a great deal of SEO is age related – which is unfortunate in some respects. Particularly if you’re a new site coming online with good content. I’ve personally had sites with higher scores on sites like Seomoz, Websitegrader, and so on.. yet those sites still place higher then my 1 year old site. I recognize those sites don’t look at particular SERP’s, but I’ve taken that into consideration as well… SEO is just a tough and uncertain business is what it all boils down too :)

Hey Sean:
I see that as a factor that can’t be bought also, but it could be exploited? In the sense that an older dormant domain, would be, in fact, more valuable in “quality” to Google than a domain to a newer website that has been more active in terms of posts and content updating?
Also wouldn’t this affect the Google real-time search?

Yes yes – there are those who do that. Those who buy older domains that are dormant have a good advantage – but they still have to develop it because, it has, as time went by, been dormant :) So it has it’s advantages and disadvantages

If you listen carefully to this link that you’ve given me, domain age does matter, buddy. Kindly check your understanding of the facts that you are trying to point out before making a claim against our articles. Thank you

Totally agree with you, but its super common that Google hide lots of usefull information for SEO. ’cause they dont want that people know the metrics behind SERPS listing. if not would be super easy to rank. Thanks!

I wonder why there is doubt and skeptism about this simple fact that can be truely and easily tested. Just take one of your old domain and register a new domain and copy the old domain into the new domain. No need to surprise that the result suggests that domain age is a big factor in Google algorithm.

SEO is indeed a tough nut to crack. I am currently fighting the age issue right now. My site is well optimized with lots of content and valid back links, but too new to rank at the top. Understandable though. SEO definitely takes patience.

I can understand how the age of a domain can act as a filter, but it can also simply be the owner registered the doman for ages and ages at the inception. We’ve all run across websites where the business has been closed for years, with no content changes but the website still ranks well. Age alone isn’t a good filter, unless there is some form of current activity. In fact, continued renewal would seem to me to be a better indictator than just length of original registration.

When one of our website’s was new we built a lot of external backlimks and results were not good. We abandoned the website and left it as is for a while. After couple months randomly we noticed that our website is higher with its rank. So I assume that age matters a lot.

Domain age is HUGELY important! Which somewhat baffles me, especially as all these trendy-esque pop culture sites come online and just like their trends.. they come and go so fast! I often wonder how new products can sometimes rank so high on SERP’s for generic keywords, but I guess a big part of their success is the “buzz/wow” factor and having lots of ppl blogging, linking and posting about them on social media… It seems I have a lot more lead way in the SEO of my older domains than anything newer… I’ve actually sandboxed one of my own “new” sites at some point, attempting to move it up the SERPs by using the same strategy that was working flawlessly on a very closely related domain that was only slightly older than the new domain… Ugh… The wonderful curveballs of SEO!

it is great post seen. I am really impressed with conversation u spoked in this blog, but still i have question need to ask u. I was researching Google and still i can’t find the exact answer to My question regarding domain Age. What is should i do if i buying a new domain? Should I buy it 10 Years, is this a domain age or How much time my site was live online is said to be domain a domain age? Confused in this…

Great information here. It totally makes sense to me that an older site that is well optimized would be ranked higher than a newer site with the same information. My domain is only a year old so I do not have the benefit of a much older domain. Time and patience.

I have actually done this myself. If I have found a domain that I may need I buy it and put a simple, plain HTML page on there so that the ‘site’ or rather domain will have been live for a while before I use it.

I think this helps, but I’m not 100%. But, it most definitely does not hurt.

Like you say, SEO is about getting the large and small things right. From the content and links to the small seemingly meaningless factors that ‘could’ alter your rankings. If there is a chance that things will help then you should be doing them (if you have the time that is).